


As Faithful as the Sea

by thilboing



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 11:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3066683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilboing/pseuds/thilboing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When memories come back in waves, the shell of the former James Buchanan Barnes begins to recollect who he actually is. However, life isn't quite that simple. Just as Bucky Barnes begins to regain his composure, life offers another curve that steers him away from the one who loved him most.</p><p>Flashbacks,  and lots 30s & 40s music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Faithful as the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first Stucky fic, and still developing the more that I write it. I know that this first chapter is sort of short, but I promise that it'll get better the more that I write and revise this.  
> This is a revision of a fic that I posted earlier (in April of 2014), but I deleted it. I'm putting it back up here after some more revisions, but no where near completion.

**The Asset**

Brooklyn. 

Brooklyn was one of the five boroughs of New York City. Alongside the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Blatant, obvious fact filtered through the Asset’s mind, regurgitating one reference after another. With a population of 2.6 million people, the Brooklyn borough was filled with bustling people, but it seemed that only one seemed to be stuck in time, frozen in a never ending loop of memory and loss. 

Brooklyn. 

A place that should hold no sentimental value with as much meaning as the cracked pavement he walked upon. Memories were nothing important; memories and sentiments would only destroy the very staunch being they had made an effort to create. Brooklyn did not have any meaning; it could not have any meaning. Yet, it meant everything.  
Brooklyn was home. 

Or at least, that’s what he had discovered. After days scouring records, wandering through historical districts, and even creeping through museums, the soldier had a name. James Buchanan Barnes had a family and a home all in writing. James Buchanan Barnes had grown up in the streets of Brooklyn, fighting and laughing with quarrelsome boys, to even snatching penny candies from drugstore countertops. James Buchanan Barnes had shared an apartment with a boy skinnier than a toothpick, but a soul that shone brighter than a thousand suns. 

James Buchanan Barnes was dead. 

As worn boots padded down the street, the soldier could feel unfamiliar warmth spread through his chest, a hesitant smile adorning an often scowling face. With each step that met cracked concrete, children’s laughter rang in his ear despite the barrenness of the street. The whispers of a name he could once call his own echoed in his ear. _I knew this place._ It was all so familiar, yet so distant all at once. It was a dream that the soldier was desperately trying to grasp, though each time that he would reach for those memories, they would slip through his fingers like fine sand, never to be returned. 

These streets were a part of him. They were a part of Bucky, anyways. The part that was shriveled and long since abandoned.

This wasn’t Bucky, however. This wasn’t the boy that had laughed and chased his friends down the street. There weren’t any penny candies in his pocket this time around, and there wasn’t an angry shop owner chasing him down the street. This wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes, that man who had stood beside the Captain in the videos and photographs that took shelter in the Smithsonian. 

He was the Winter Soldier. A skilled assassin; bread and raised to kill. His brain emptied of all thoughts and memories. Being a shell of a human was all that the Asset could cling to. Even now, he could not even call himself that. Emptiness had taken shelter in the meager asylum that was Bucky’s mind. Could he call himself that? Could the soldier take the name of the person he once was? To call himself by that name would humiliate the memory that James Barnes once was. 

Lost. That’s what he was. In the most complex of ways, the soldier was hopelessly lost. If only that was the name he could give himself. Lost. Dissatisfaction and displeasure filled the little emotion that the Asset could begin to feel. James Buchanan Barnes had gone astray with only the company of his mind, hindering any form of escape. Thinking was painful—that was the only thing that the soldier knew for certain. Pain was all that he could cling to, now more than ever before. 

Memories filled this quaint little place, the area that he had once called home. As the soldier rounded a corner in the historical district, it was there that the soldier found something to quench his mind. The soldier stared up at a rickety building, familiarity of the body and of the psyche, even if the soldier could not place why this place seemed to calm him. 

Home. That’s all that the soldier knew what to piece together.

 

__________________________________  
 _Brooklyn, June 1934_

_“You’re gon’ get caught, Bucky,” A voice called from behind, “And I’m not going to do anything to defend your sorry ass.” A chuckle echoed through the silence and the darkness of the night. There was a smile on the stranger’s face; one could tell by the way his voice lingered with that teasing glint, how laughter coated each word like sugar. “Besides, my mom’s going to wonder where I ran off to. She worries, Buck. You know that.”_

_“Oh, come on, Rogers. You’ve gotta live a little bit. You can’t just sit inside and draw the world as it happens. You’ve gotta experience it every now and again!” Bucky turned around to look at the smaller man, thin framed and scrawny as Bucky looked down to him. “And I’m not gonna get caught. I’ve done this before.” His chest swelled with pride, and Steve laughed, blinking up at his friend with wide eyes. Oh, how Bucky adored those cobalt orbs. They were the brightest blue that Bucky had ever seen in all of his life. Brighter and clearer than the ocean, that’s the color they were._

_“What are you trying to prove?” Steve shrugged his shoulders, blinking up at the fence that Bucky claimed he could climb over in three seconds flat. “It’s a fence. It says ‘NO TRESSPASSING’ right there, in capital letters and everything. I’m not getting killed just because you want to climb a damn fence.”_

_“Thanks for stating the obvious, Stevie.” Bucky roared with laughter, “You were always the smart one.” Bucky snickered in spite of himself, azure orbs flickering about the two of them. “You also said that I couldn’t climb that thing and not get caught. I’ve got to prove another point to you, my skinny companion.” A grin was plastered against Bucky’s cheeks as he looked down to Steve, who didn’t say anything for a long while._

_“So, it’s going to be my fault? The cops are going to come and you’re going to tell them I told you to do it? That I egged you on? ‘Officer, it’s my fault. My friend Bucky here just couldn’t handle the fact that I said he couldn’t climb a fence. I’m awful sorry.’” Despite his size, Steve didn’t take any shit from anyone, not even Bucky Barnes. It was just the way Steve was._

_“Fuck off, Stevie.” Bucky’s eyes met Steve’s for a moment or two before he spoke once again, “Obviously. They’ll believe you, and we’ll get off scot free.” Laughter filled the silence of the alleyway as the two of them blinked up at the fence. Bucky’s stomach began to churn as he looked up at the wired fence, not that he would ever admit it to Steve. His little Stevie would only laugh and wait for him to climb the stupid fence in the first place. “Do I get a kiss before I climb this thing? For good luck?” More laughter filled the air at that, a hand clasped over Bucky’s mouth to keep himself from laughing too loud._

_“Make it over the fence, and then we’ll talk about things.” Steve shrugged his shoulders once again, blinking up at Bucky once again. Those bright eyes of Steve’s, glistening and shining brighter than the night sky and deeper than the sea. It was thoughts like those that Bucky kept from Steve. Bucky Barnes may have been plenty of things, but he was no sap. But Steve knew, even if Bucky didn’t have to say it. Steve knew every goddamn thing in the entire universe, all pent up in that tiny head of his._

_“You’ve got yourself a deal, Rogers.” Bucky offered Steve one last smile before he ventured towards the fence, fingers grasping the flimsy wire. Some fence this was. Time was of the essence, and Bucky had a point to prove. As quickly as Bucky had grasped onto the fence, he had made it halfway up the damn thing, Steve now standing far below him. “See? I told you I’ve got this!”_

_“You said three seconds flat! You’ve got one second left!” The scrawny man burst into a fit of giggles, “Of course you do, Buck. You’ve got everything that you do.” Steve crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked up to Bucky, brows furrowed together. Bucky was going to get caught. That much was for certain. Some things were inevitable.  
Just like that, the familiar screams that started to fill the silence of the night. “Shit!” Bucky was almost up the fence when the lights of the factory building started to fill the darkened street. Words along the lines of, ‘Who goes there?’ alongside, ‘I’m gon’ call the police!’ and, ‘You’re gon’ wish you never done that!’ were now being hollered in the general direction of the two. _

_Steve’s laughter quickly dissipated. “Run, Bucky!” Filled the air as Steve took off down the alley as fast as his skinny legs and weak lungs could take him. Damn that little man. He was short and scrawny, able to fit into any corner or crevice that he wanted._

_Bucky soon felt the ground beneath his knees and quickly beneath his feet as he began tumbling off behind Steve. Of course this would happen, just as Steve predicted. He would never hear the end of this. It wasn’t much longer until the two were under the solace of familiar streetlamps and cracked pavement beneath their feet. “I still get that kiss, right? Technically speaking, I did climb that damn fence. I just got caught and had to turn around. So, I should get my kiss.” Bucky retorted, a familiar mischievous glimmer sparkling in those cerulean eyes._

_“When we’re not going to have the police on our tail because you wanted to prove a point, then you get your kiss.” Steve retorted, their heavy footsteps now slowly shifting to a steady walk. “Besides, we’re out in the middle of the street. There are apartment lights on, and the last thing I want to happen is have someone look down and see the two of us going at it in the middle of the street. That ain’t decent, Buck.”_

_“I don’t see what’s wrong with now. And fuck decency, Stevie. Besides, you promised. You always keep your promises.” Bucky snorted as he stopped walking, grasping at Steve’s arm, leading his companion down another quaint street. The alley was dark, only streetlamps shining down on them. “I’m gon’ get my kiss.” Bucky always got what he wanted, not that Steve would protest._

_“Fine.” Steve huffed, feeling their bodies shift as his back met the brick building. Bucky was gentle, despite the yearning for intimacy that the two suddenly craved. Bucky always treated Steve like a delicate flower, no matter how often the skinnier man had protested that he didn’t needed to be treated so delicately. Time would only prove that Steve, in fact, was no delicate lily. “Well, are you just gonna stare at me or what?” Steve’s sugar coated laugh filled the little space between them, their heavy breaths mixing and dancing as they stood under the shadows of night. Their eyes met for only a moment before their lips met, slow and sweet. Steve eased himself into the touch, thin fingers clasping at the thin fabric of Bucky’s shirt._

_“Parents aren’t gonna be home for a little while longer, if you wanted to come over for a while.” Bucky murmured when he finally pulled away. “You can call your Ma when we get home, tell her you decided to stay at my place for the night. She won’t say no, Stevie.” Bucky pleaded, “Could listen to the radio, read the newspaper…” Not that they would do anything like that so late at night._

_“My mom’ll worry if she doesn’t get a call soon. Get off me, Buck, and we can head home. The more time you waste just standin’ there, the less time we’ll have.” There was more laughter, those cerulean orbs fixated upon Bucky’s eyes. “Come on, last I heard, that guy was calling the cops on you. I wouldn’t risk hanging outside a moment longer.”_

__________________________________

With bleary eyes and heavy breaths, the soldier bolted upright, visions of those bright blue eyes still stinging his mind. A dream. The Asset hadn’t dreamt in years. Years had ticked by, and now something was coming back to his mind. Another feeling, another memory that he could cling to. _Those bright eyes of Steve’s, glistening and shining brighter than the night sky and deeper than the sea._ As much as he tried to get the vision of those eyes from his mind, how they glistened like sapphires, twinkling and sparkling like a million dollar gem. 

There was more to him now than just emptiness. 

The soldier let a heavy breath tumble from his lips; eyes frantic as he searched around him, looking about to see where he had taken shelter for that night. It was as if his body and mind had given up all at once, seeing as the Asset couldn’t remember laying down to sleep that night. Cerulean eyes flickered up to a rickety wire fence, with “NO TRESSPASSING” written on a dirt covered sign, yellowed and seemingly ancient. 

 

_“It says ‘NO TRESSPASSING’ right there, in capital letters and everything.”_

 

“Stevie?” The soldier called out. 

 

Only this time, there was no sugar coated laughter to greet him in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and critiques are always appreciated. I'm new at this, so anything you lovely readers have to say will be more than encouraging. c:


End file.
